Energy Harvesting Wireless Communications: A Review of Recent Advances

TL;DR

This review paper summarizes recent advances in energy harvesting wireless communications, covering theoretical limits, transmission policies, energy transfer, and network models for sustainable wireless systems.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent research developments in energy harvesting wireless networks, including theoretical, practical, and emerging energy transfer techniques.

Findings

Current state-of-the-art in energy harvesting wireless networks

Analysis of energy transfer and cooperation methods

Models for energy consumption and network scalability

Abstract

This article summarizes recent contributions in the broad area of energy harvesting wireless communications. In particular, we provide the current state of the art for wireless networks composed of energy harvesting nodes, starting from the information-theoretic performance limits to transmission scheduling policies and resource allocation, medium access and networking issues. The emerging related area of energy transfer for self-sustaining energy harvesting wireless networks is considered in detail covering both energy cooperation aspects and simultaneous energy and information transfer. Various potential models with energy harvesting nodes at different network scales are reviewed as well as models for energy consumption at the nodes.